


Mario Kart For Beginners

by gatty



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-19
Updated: 2012-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-31 11:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatty/pseuds/gatty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dave and Terezi play Mario Kart. Dave sucks. Exactly no one is surprised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mario Kart For Beginners

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by conversations with the inestimable [naive_wanderer](http://madseason.tumblr.com) and helped on its way by [artillie](http://sunspeared.tumblr.com) and [Liz](http://angerliz.tumblr.com).

Dave wouldn’t agree it was pillow fort, not in the strictest sense. A pillow fort implied co-opted objects and furniture all roped into a shambling construction held together mostly by faith and liberal application of clothes pins. This was something else. 

A month after arriving in the veil, Dave had announced to Terezi that it was, _“colder than Frosty the fucking Snowman’s fingers up my sphincter in a prostate exam. Fuck, TZ, are you all lizard people or something”_. Trolls were, in fact, not lizard people, and two days after Dave’s outburst, Terezi had busied herself at one of the the computer terminals for three hours straight. She had found Dave trying to eat a raw appearified chili for warmth, and dragged him off, _“for a surprise, coolkid, of course I am not going to tell you what it is.”_

In the room Dave had claimed as his own was a tent like thing made entirely of superman bedsheets all suspended from the ceiling by wire. 

“I did research,” Terezi announced, burrowing in between the sheets. “This is how humans keep warm, is it not.”

Dave hesitated the barest fraction of a second before following her in, and really very definitely not staring at her ass on the way. 

“It’s… yeah it’s one option.” 

Inside it was a closer match for the forts of his childhood. There was a distinct lack of appreciation for health and safety rules, with sheets draped over bare light-bulbs, and in one place, worryingly, an electric bar heater. There was also a TV, a wii and a stack of video games. Dave moved the bar heater away from the rapidly approaching origin point of the fire that would kill them all, while Terezi nested in a pile of pillows. She chucked him a wiimote when he turned round, and cocked her head at him.

“Dave Strider, I hereby challenge you to a duel.”

The corner of Dave’s mouth curled in a smirk, and arched an eyebrow at Terezi. 

“Prepare to go down.” His face fell, only fractionally noticeable behind his shades. “Oh god, wait.”

“Why Dave, what are you suggesting.”

“Nothing! I just meant that you’ll be eating a lot of my - “ Terezi guffawed - “dust! I was going to say dust! Jesus, girl, get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Nope.”

Dave glowered and remained mute behind his shades. 

Terezi hooked her foot around his ankle like a shepherd’s crook and dragged him to the pillow nest.

“You can continue your innuendo after I wipe your face with my genetic fluid. That is how punning works, yes?”

Dave turned a gentle shade of tomato and perched decorously on the edge of a pillow. “Er. Close enough. I vote we both stop talking now.” 

She stuck her tongue out and shoved him with her foot. “What ever, Strider, eat my pixilated dust.”

And so the Mario Kart Battle For Personal Dignity commenced. It was also the battle for personal space, as Terezi edged Dave further and further over, swooping and diving spectacularly as she smashed opponent after opponent. When she got her third black bullet of the lap, Dave began to give genuine thought to the possibility of troll-technology psychic abilities. Dave, unwilling to fling himself too violently into controlling his kart, lest he bump into Terezi, or god forbid, break a sweat, lost spectacularly. 

“Dave, this is not the point of the Fortress of Warmitude. You have to come over here so we can share body heat. I read about it, it happens all the time on earth.” 

‘TZ, I’m not sure what you’ve been reading, but it was probably written by a fifteen year old girl in Delaware who thinks Team Jacob saved her life.” 

Terezi pouted. “But Dave, I put on the cape specially.”

Dave had not wanted to consider the purpose of the dragon cape till this point. He had labelled it ‘none of my business’ and placed it firmly in a box underneath a rock in his mind.

“It is like a blanket you can wear! I am thinking of naming it ‘Clothanket.” 

“Those already exist, they’re called snuggies. And I’m not getting into your furry wet dream of a snuggie. If I really needed to keep warm I’d kill Karkat and wear his skin like a those space llamas in The Empire Strikes Back.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, but it all seems like a thinly veiled attempt to retain your dignity while convincing yourself the clothanket is your best bet.” She held out one side of the furry red cloak, for him to position himself next to her. “Hurry up, I want to beat you at a children’s game again.”

Dave looked at his rapidly cooling extremities, and then at his dignity. His dignity was pretty large, but then he considered the fact that if he lost his fingers to frostbite he would have to be fed by a selection of angry trolls and one blonde who would destroy his dignity in five seconds flat. His dignity was put in the box with the questions about the cloak, and he curled up next to Terezi like a woodlouse under a log. She pulled the cloak tightly round him, only allowing his hands to poke out with the wiimote. 

“There. Now get ready to have your ass handed to you, petty human.”

“Hey, I’m a god. If anyone’s getting their ass passed around like Ferrero Roche at a embassy party, it’s the mortal fursuit owning freak right here.” 

Terezi narrowed her eyes, and flared her nostrils but said nothing. Her point was made when she finished in first place before Dave had completed his second lap. He said nothing but flexed his fingers and selected a rematch. When Terezi was rounding a corner in Wario’s Gold Mine, Dave accidentally was forced to sneeze with great violence, jogging Terezi with his elbow. Terezi still finished first, and took the opportunity while she waited for Dave to cross the line to hit him on the side of the head accidentally while scratching her chin. 

Much light bruising and several levels later, Dave threw his wiimote down in disgust. 

“You alchemised this wrong, it’s broken.”

“Oh Dave, please do not make any attempts to excuse your abilities, which, by the way, are similar to that of an earth cocker-spaniel variety of barkbeast.”

“… Burn? Ok, we really need to have a lesson in snappy rejoinders.” 

“What are you talking about, I completely annihilated you. Any verbal taunts I add are only delicious cherries on my pie of victory. Victory over you, barkbeast boy.”

Dave pursed his lips and said nothing. 

“Oh come on, do not tell me you are genuinely upset over a game.”

“I don’t know TZ, your idea of a game and mine can be pretty different. You’ve proved that before.”

Terezi put down her wiimote and wriggled around in the pillow nest to face Dave. The cloak, still being wrapped around both of them held them a little too close for comfort. 

“Dave, are you angry at me.”

“No!”

“Then why is your mouth pointing down.”

“I’m not angry at you. If you think I’m angry you’ve clearly misunderstood the Strider ability to remain cool in any situation.” His shoulders were stiff, arms folded gate-like over his chest. 

“Ok.” Terezi began to poke the side of his face. Dave tried to swat her hand away, and she took revenge by swiping a fingernail over his skin. “In that case you won’t mind me doing this.”

“What the fuck, TZ, stop it.” He tried to back away, hand slipping on a pillow and he was forced, to his annoyance, to reach out for her shoulder to steady himself.

“Nope. You said you’re not angry. That you’re cool in any situation. If you’re not going to talk to me properly then I’ll just have to be irrational at you too.”

“Oh my god what sort of logic even is that. Stop it!”

She continued to poke him, moving in a circle from his cheek bone, along to his nose, then down over his cheek to his jaw and back up again. 

“I told you. Until you’re going to be sensible and tell me what’s bugging you, then I’m going to bug you!” 

“God I never knew how much better it was talking over Trollian.”

“Don’t be silly, Dave, I would have just sent future you back to bug past you until you talked to me.” 

“I’m not angry, all right! I’m just… I don’t know.”

“You are worried you cannot keep up with me.”

“I told you the wiimote is broken, I’m not worried about a stupid game. That’s not what I said.”

“I don’t mean the game.”

“What?”

“You are worried you will bore me if we have to spend three years stuck together on this asteroid.”

Dave stared at her, biting his lips to keep them in a narrow emotionless line. 

“I didn’t say that.”

“You did not have to. I know you, Dave.” She stopped poking him, and placed her hands on either side of his face. “And it is sweet that you are worried, but I am not going to change who I am because of your ego.”

“No! I didn’t mean that.” His eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t want you to change. I just… I’m a _god_. I’m a god of time and I saved the day and everything but I’m still just me. And I’m not sure that’s enough for anyone any more.”

Terezi quirked an eyebrow at him. “Wow, you’re dumb.” 

“Not helping, TZ.”

She held his face so he was forced to look at her. “Listen to me. You can be as boring as you like and I will still like you. Because that is my problem.” 

Dave tried to pull free, but she held him still and kissed him softly on the lips. “I choose you, okay? Even if you are crap at a kid’s game.”

Dave scowled. “I am not crap, my wiimote’s broken.”

“Do you not think it makes you a bit of a loser calling it a wiimote?”

“Nothing wrong with using the correct terminology. Swap _wiimotes_ with me and I’ll take you  
down.” 

“Ha. Why not.”

She tossed him her controller and took his.

“On one condition.”

“Hmm?” 

“You gotta console the loser.”

“With my lips?”

“Yeah, TZ, with your lips.” 

Five levels later, and five, slightly clumsy but well intentioned kisses later, Dave was losing even worse, and pointedly driving the wrong way round the track in order to lie in wait and crash into Terezi. 

“Do you not think, Dave,” said Terezi, slightly breathlessly, pulling back from consolation kiss number six. “That this might be a slightly unhealthy development in our relationship?”

“What?” Dave slid an arm around her waist under the pretence of tucking his hand against her back for warmth. 

“Your tongue is going to get tired eventually.”

“Nah, try me. I’m a tonguing champion.”

Terezi snickered, bright teeth flashing in the dim light of the pillow fort. 

“Wait, damn that came out wrong.”

“Oh did it?” 

Terezi waggled her eyebrows at him, and Dave had to busy himself with checking the settings of the controllers to keep a straight face.

They were interrupted by Karkat shoving his face between two sheets.

“Oh, for fucks sake, here you are. Rose has called a team meeting.”

“Hey Karkat, want to play Dave at a children’s game? He is shit, I promise you will have fun.”

“Hey!”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “As much as it might boggle your tiny minds to fathom this, I have no great interest in challenging the pallid human to a game that requires the skill of a barkbeast.” 

“Yes, that is why it is fun.”

“I’m not kissing him if I lose,” interjected Dave, levelling a glare at Karkat. 

Karkat flushed, backing out of the fort so quickly he got his horn caught on one of the cords that hung from the ceiling, and two sheets collapsed.

“What! I’m not falling into your plan that easily, Terezi. What kind of mind-numbingly incompetent fecal smear do you take me for. Fuck. Goodbye. Come to the meeting or not, I don’t give a tiny rat’s shit. Please yourself.”

Terezi cackled. Dave tugged on her hair to get her attention. 

“Wait, hang on. Did you want me to kiss Karkat? What the hell?”

She shrugged, pushing a wiimote into his hands. 

“Why not? It’s going to be a long three years.”


End file.
